Several weeks ago two blue envelopes arrived from the local courthouse containing papers certifying that we had indeed transferred to our village our ownership of a strip of property extending out to the middle of the road in front of our house, only I wasn’t home and so my envelope was taken back to the local post office by the mailman because it was an official envelope that he could only give to the addressee with proof of identity and proper signature.

He left, instead, a yellow piece of paper informing me that I could pick up the envelope at any time between like 8.30 and 4.30, except during the lunch break. This had me sputtering and ranting about official offices in Austria and how are working people supposed to get anything done if they have to take the day off from work to pick up a fucking envelope, since I leave home earlier than that and get home later than that.

My wife told me to just go to the back door of the post office before opening hours and knock. This I refused to do on principle, because it could be embarrassing if the mailman asked me what the hell I was doing, you know? I mean, official hours are official hours. Except I was unable to pick up the letter otherwise, so on the last day, the day of the deadline after which the letter would be returned to the courthouse and initiate another, more complicated process, I tried it. I parked behind the post office and knocked, the mailman immediately brought me the letter, I showed him I.D., signed and he wished me a nice day.

Austria cracks me up sometimes.

So I was a lot calmer when I got another yellow slip telling me that a package had arrived last week. The only thing I could think of was my package had arrived from Amazon. And sure enough, when I knocked on the back door of the post office this morning, he brought me The 2003 Writer’s market Online. I paid six bucks extra for customs charges, which surprised me since books are often not inflicted with customs charges, but even with that charge it’s still cheaper to have it sent from the US than from Amazon.de, for some reason. (Thanks for sending me the discount, Jessica).

The book is sitting here on my desk at work, whispering to me to free it from its shrinkwrap and thumb through it. We’ll see. I’ve got to go pick up some stuff at the U.N. first…